– WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels recently spoke with Phil Strum of The Poughkeepsie Journal and talked about his retirements:

Phil Strum: First of all, how are you enjoying retirement?

Shawn Michaels: I’m enjoying it immensely. It works for me. I’m a lazy person by nature, so retirement is right up my alley. I would have done it sooner, obviously, but apparently you have to work before you retire, so it would have been in my best interest to get that out of the way. I’m enjoying it very much.

PS: You sort of retired twice, in a way, because you stopped wrestling for four years. I went to the show where you wrestled Triple H at SummerSlam at Nassau Coliseum. At that point, everyone thought this was the last time we’re going to see Shawn Michaels. Then, you went on almost a decade-long run of amazing matches and amazing performances. What was that like to have that come back?

SM: It was a gift. The first — I never said I retired the first time. I guess, in my mind, retirement is when you leave on your own terms. The first one, being told I was never going to wrestle again as the result of a back injury, obviously that’s not the way you envision your career ending. Having dealt with that and gone through it and having the opportunity for a second chance, and that the second chance, as you say, being almost a decade, was at first, honestly as much of a shock to me as it was to everybody else. The genuine intention was to come back for one match and sort of see how everything did. To honestly feel like, holy cow, I feel like I can do what I used to do. I went with that until I felt that the peace within me that I could walk away again and it would be on my terms, my timing and all those things you wish and you envision being like. I got the opportunity to do that.